We believe people choose to use many different services and that our role is to help them connect to the people who matter most, wherever they are. You see this in the People experience, where you connect to your contact lists from Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and more. And you can already chat with your Facebook and Skype friends. But we heard that some of you who switched over from Gmail still want to chat with friends stuck on Gmail. Today, we’re excited to announce that you can now also chat with your Google friends. With this feature, the next time you’re reading an email from someone who uses Gmail, you can reply with a quick chat right from your Outlook.com inbox. And if you’re working together on an Office document in SkyDrive, you can send an instant message to a Google contact with just a click. We’re rolling out Google chat integration now, so look for it in your inbox over the next couple of days.

Bringing all your people together

In the past, the way you added contact data into an email account or social network was to manually enter all the info or import your contacts from another account. Then, if you wanted to send an IM to someone, you had to invite them and have them accept your invite. We respect the fact that you use many different services and have invested a great deal of time and effort in building those contact lists, and so we believe the best approach is to help you to connect to the services you already use.

Once your services are connected, you can see all of your contacts together in one place. And since you are often connected to a person through more than one service, we automatically match up contacts that are the same and link them together. Of course, you can also link any contacts we missed or unlink any contacts that don’t belong together.

The result is an uncluttered contact list full of people you really know. At a glance, you can see a quick summary of a contact with information from across all those networks. And you’re just one click away from common tasks like sending an email, calling a number, mapping an address, or starting a chat, on any of the services you’ve connected!

Your contacts are synched with the secure, industry-standard OAuth protocol used by our partners like Google, Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn. This helps you stay in control of your data and who has access to it.

Chat with your Google contacts in Outlook.com

When you open the Messaging pane in Outlook.com or SkyDrive, you’ll see a message that helps you set up chat with your Google contacts. Just click it to get started; setup will only take a minute.

As part of setting up the connection, you’ll see Google’s authorization flow. This is how Google helps you control which services can access your Google information. Clicking “Allow access” will allow Microsoft’s chat and contacts services to connect to Google and set up chat. You’re in control of this connection and can change it at any time at https://profile.live.com/services.

That’s it! In just a few moments, you’ll see your Google contacts appear in your contact list. Click on their picture to start a conversation with someone or search for any of your Google contacts right from the Messaging pane.

Chat with your Google contacts on SkyDrive, too

The messaging experience works across your Outlook.com inbox, calendar and People contact list, as well as SkyDrive.com. If you’re working together on a document with a Google friend, you can be chatting with them at the same time without leaving SkyDrive. You can even share a link to the document and edit it together in real time!

Rolling out now

Google chat integration will be available to everyone worldwide in the next few days. While it’s rolling out, you might notice a few quirks if you’re jumping around between SkyDrive and Outlook.com, but that will be resolved as soon as the rollout is complete. If you’re like most people, you’ll see it appear first in SkyDrive and then in your inbox and People page. If you don’t see it in your inbox quite yet, it’s on the way!

If you aren’t one of the over 400 million people who are already using Outlook.com, we encourage you to give it a try. If you’re a Google customer today, it’s even easier to make the switch. And we think that more of you will soon be talking about how your Google friends have gone to Outlook.com.

Let us know what you think of this new chat integration. As with any new experience we build, we’ll be listening to feedback and welcome your comments!

That’s awesome. Making the switch looks an easier decision. But, still I can’t make it until you add IMAP support, I know this is being asked a lot, but one more time wouldn’t hurt. I don’t have exchange on my mail client. Pleas add it.

Plus, if I migrate from gmail to outlook, how do are my mails retrieved? Through POP? This means that I will get only the mails from my inbox, am I right?

This is indeed great news. Google chat uses XMPP, right? Does that mean there’s the possibility of wider XMPP support being available at some point?

As a extension of Nicolas Hormazabal’s comment:
When will there be a way of migrating email from GMail to Outlook.com that supports custom domains? That’s what’s stopping me switching right now. I’ve got a LOT of historical email, and it’s sorted into a whole load of labels/folders.

Great!
Now please finally update your Contact/AddressBook solution. Microsoft is still using the 20 years old fields of Mobile and Mobile 2. Brake these pre-set labels free.

My Google Contacts with multiple "Mobile" (different) numbers are not showing correctly on Microsoft People. And if I edit a Google Contact using PeopleHub/Outlook Contacts and add a second Mobile as Mobile 2, it appears to Google Contacts as Car Phone. Pffff… Its a mess.

Once you you set up Google integration on Outlook.com, how can I set it up on my Windows Phone? I’ve already set it up, but after a few moments the Google symbol went missing from the Outlook.com messaging panel. Also, Skype is nowhere to be found, even though I’ve already merged it with my messenger account. I can only see Facebook and Messenger on my Outlook messaging panel.

"This doesn’t just work for your contacts on Outlook.com and SkyDrive. We use the same model in the People app for Windows and the People hub for Windows Phone." Ummmm

Nope. Signed in, but my Google Talk contacts don’t appear on my Win8 desktop, Google TAlk isn’t a connection option in Windows 8 Messenger, and I don’t see them as available chat options in People on desktop or WP8. Help!

Send yourself another email (from same or different email address)
Do nothing…

You get nothing.

So basically, if you do not catch that first email, you won’t get a ringtone or vibrate for any new emails until you clear that notification, rendering the app functionally useless because there are too many times where you may miss one notification and catch a subsequent one.

Mind as well just not have it give a notification at all.

So I moved everything to Gmail, cause the Gmail app > the stock email app on my phone and I don’t see a point in even bothering to set up Outlook.com in any email app that doesn’t have give a proper conversation view.

iis really great that we can chat with our friends at Google in Outlook, as well as what we can do with facebook, another advantage is that filters out duplicate contacts outlook, I really fabulous for all who appreciate the new mail outlook. Very well.